The aim of the ‘2Reuse’ project is to provide an efficient, cost effective service to housing tenants, predominantly in the Social Housing market. This service is deemed to have an imminent growth surge due the new legislation regarding the definition of ‘Homelessness’. The ‘2ReUse’ service will provide these tenants with a ‘Basic Home Start’ furniture pack (detailed below) and at the same time offer several other ancillary services. These would include ‘House Clearances’, largely on behalf of the Social Landlords, Sales to the general public and a PAT (Portable Appliance Testing) service to the Social Landlords with this service also being offered to the larger business community.

Extensive investigation of the similar established activities in Aberdeen, Banchory and Buckie together with wide-ranging discussions with the various social landlords has enabled us to form a robust model for our proposed scheme. This is a brief summarised conclusion of our work to date.

The three main social landlords in our proposed area (outside of the Local Authority Housing Service) are Langstone, Tenants First and Grampian. These three have a housing stock of some 700 units between them (from Fraserburgh to Ellon). It is important to stress that the potential market extends well beyond these three landlords. For instance the local authority has a housing base of some 2000 units and while at this stage no detailed discussions have taken place with this service we are aware that they are showing a great deal of interest in our proposals and are more than likely to become involved at some stage.

Furthermore, there are many groups in the field such as the Barnados Social Work, Working for Families and others all of whom have a need, at various levels, to provide their own clients with materials that we propose to deal with and have shown an interest in using our services.

Supply of Goods.

Goods are provided for our service from three elements; donations to our shop units at Berryden Road, Peterhead, donations to our Reuse container at Dales Park Household Waste & Recycling Centre at Damhead Road, Peterhead, donations through House Clearances. The general public can donate items either by contacting us in order that we can collect or by bringing the items to one of our donation points. We can collect free of charge in the AB42 area of Buchan.

House Clearances; Please contact 2Reuse Project to discuss your needs.

Processing Goods.

All goods received would be inspected for minor flaws and would be adjusted, replaced or repaired. They would also be cleaned according to requirement such as with antiseptic materials through vacuuming and steam cleaning. All electrical goods would also go through a PAT process and be suitably labelled.

To do this work we are close to obtaining a suitably large workshop area that can be divided into separate sectors to enable operations such as electrical testing and steam cleaning to be done effectively and safely.

From these cleaned and vetted items we would compile ‘Basic Home Start’ packs these would consist of the following items:

•    One bed and associated bedding
•    Suite of furniture
•    Table and chairs
•    TV
•    Kettle
•    Microwave
•    Cutlery, China and cooking utensils
•    Towelling
•    Curtains (with rails or fittings)
•    Coffee Table
•    Mats
•    Chest of drawers
•    Wardrobe.

The proposed cost to the customer of this Basic Pack will provisionally be £250. The basic packs will to some extent be flexible in their make up but any additional items would increase the base price.

In addition to this basic pack, additional items such as an Oven, Refrigerator, Washing Machine, Carpeting would be available through ‘2ReUse’ at an extra charge.

There are two ways of servicing the client base for these larger items. One is to provide serviced and checked second-hand items that have gone through our checking process the other way is where suitably qualified clients can obtain a loan, via the Credit Union, where they can then purchase new goods through Hydro Electric at a 20% discount.

Other Sales.

By its very definition the project will undoubtedly acquire surplus materials outside of those required for the Home Start packs this would come from donations or from a mismatch of material acquired from house clearances.

This material would be available for sale to the general public and private landlords through a shop attached to the project base.

Portable Appliance Testing

All electrical goods have now to go through a regular safety check and a suitably trained person within the project would undertake this. This, however, is deemed to be a far larger market therefore it is proposed that we would generate a substantial supplementary income stream by offering this service to all businesses in our catchment area.

Waste

This market, by its very nature, will generate a certain level of waste material. While we will require a Waste Licence this will in effect be at no cost for we shall then be operating as a Charity (exempted).

Staffing

We anticipate employing one full time Manager to run the whole business. In addition to this, there will be one full time ‘Technical Overseer’ to operate the Workshop, Collection and Delivery services. This person would have a full time assistant.

A further four staff would operate within the workshop and the shop and these, where appropriate, would be interchangeable. These four staff would be recruited from the SCVO ‘New Deal’ scheme which provides their salaries (to basic salary level, plus some other costs) for up to 6 months. After that period we can change the staff or convert them to full time employees at our cost.

A two-man team would always operate the van (sponsorship sourcing currently underway); this would leave two others in the workshop to work on cleaning, repairing and preparing goods.

The Manager of this project will report to, and be responsible to, the Peterhead Projects Manager and will liase fully with the nominated director on a regular basis. The board will receive comprehensive monthly reports until the board decrees otherwise.

Transport

A provision has been made for the Leasing of a late model, almost new, 3.5 ton hard shell Luton Body diesel van complete with an electrical tail lift. There is, however, the prospect that this might actually be donated or part funded or sponsored through Shell UK and that has yet to be fully investigated.